If Phil Spector could produce the Ramones, then Kim Fowley can produce Muck and the Mires, local faves whose sound has always been two parts Ramones to five parts British Invasion. On their three previous CDs, Muck seemed incapable of getting a studio sound that approached their live one; the tracks sounded like clean demos and their devastating live volume wasn’t even hinted at. Enter Fowley, the legendary LA eccentric who wrote “Alley Oop” in the early ’60s, discovered the Runaways a decade later, and currently DJ’s on Little Steven’s Sirius channel. Part of his contribution appears to have been creating a manic vibe in the studio. Lead singer Evan Shore sounds grittier than ever before; the band sound far less polite. And this four-track EP (a teaser for an eventual album) is still plenty Beatlesque, but now they’re the scruffy Hamburg Beatles instead of the cleaned-up ones. The title track has long been one of their best live numbers, but the standout is “Hypnotic,” which Shore seems to have written after Fowley told him his existing songs weren’t stupid enough. It fills the bill, with a wonderfully silly whammy-bar bit that introduces each chorus. And Fowley throws in enough handclaps and surf guitar to evoke one of those mythical Sunset Strip parties.

Remembering Joey Ramone On top of everything else that was a drag about the decade just past, there was this: in a three-and-a-half-year span, we lost three quarters of the Ramones. And then CBGB closed.

Import only Whether or not the Pipettes ever make good on the flabbergasting confidence and effrontery of their debut, We Are the Pipettes (an import on Memphis Industries), they’ve already earned themselves a dissident footnote in the history of girl-group pop.

Cool papa, hot mama Between Phil Spector’s becoming rock and roll’s first teen millionaire and the rock tycoons who emerged some decades later lies the rise of the hippie aristocrat.

Rinocerose Who would have expected, at this late date, to find a 1980s glam band with a feyish, Trent Reznor–influenced singer leading the action?

WALTER SICKERT LEADS A BAND OF MUSICAL MISFITS | February 05, 2011 When Walter Sickert and his Army of Broken Toys played an official First Night show at the Hynes Auditorium on New Year's Eve, they ran overtime and the soundman pulled the plug — which isn't quite the smartest way of shutting down an acoustic band.

REVIEW: ROCK OF AGES | October 12, 2010 At the start of the hair-metal musical Rock of Ages (at the Colonial Theatre through October 17), narrator Lonny (Patrick Lewallen) promises a night of sexy decadence and general kick-assery.